The parable of Odili’s ginger farm

Tunde

1 month ago

Odili

In a way, the unveiling of PAMO University of Medical Science in Port Harcourt last weekend speaks not just to Nigeria’s dark reality but also its possibilities. All contemplative Peter Odili ever dreamt when he acquired a vast swath of land in Elelenwo forest in 1989 was no more than a gigantic ginger farm complete with processing equipment.

That was before his foray into politics.

Other ideas cascaded as the years rolled by and urbanization approached. First, the farm was converted to a training and empowerment camp for vulnerable women. Later, it yielded to scholarship as an outreach of the National Open University. Then, last year, following an epiphany of sorts, the kaleidoscope of derelict structures were spruced up preparatory to the take-off of the first privately owned university in Rivers State, with a faculty drawing from some of the best professionals around.

The fruition was the brief but colorful ceremony of last Saturday.

But much more significant, I think, is the fortuitous circumstance the varsity idea was conceived. Dateline: December 2016. A four-hour flight delay brought Dr. Odili and a total stranger together inside the VIP lounge of the Abuja airport. The acquaintance turned out to be the Executive Secretary of the National University Commission.

Both being intellectuals, their conversation along the line veered into the increasing educational tourism abroad for training attuned to global trend particularly in specialized areas like medicine and the concomitant drain on the nation’s meager resources.

For Odili, that was the epiphanic moment. The rest, as they say, is now history.

Now, while acknowledging the record despatch with which PAMO’s application for registration was treated, the Pro-Chancellor was effusive in his praise of the NUC boss, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, who is not a fellow Niger Deltan nor Southerner but a northerner.

According to him, Rasheed, a complete stranger to him until the 2016 encounter in Abuja, literally moved mountains to ensure PAMO saw the light of the day. More, no less an elder statesman than former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, also accepted, without hesitation, his nomination as Chancellor of the new institution.

Coming at a time the nation’s fault-lines are getting magnified on account of negative politics championed by ethnic entrepreneurs, the story of PAMO’s conception and delivery is undoubtedly teachable indeed. It speaks to our potentials once we refuse parochial considerations to influence our sense of judgement.

Sounding somewhat emotional at the inauguration Saturday, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State expressed government’s willingness to accord PAMO unqualified support not just out of a moral duty to help the private sector, but also in the confidence that, given the professed vision, it will soon add Rivers to the global map in the field of medical research and study.

Coming six months ahead of his 70th birthday and over forty years he was certificated as medical doctor, Odili could indeed not have conceived a worthier professional legacy.